matt_the_bass

I bought my first house in 2006 just before the peak. I sold 3 years ago for less than I bought. But if I consider what I would have paid in rent for equivalent standard of living, then I broke even or maybe even a little ahead in total cost. However a BIG difference was that a significant portion of that expenditure became equity. So I was able to grow wealth rather than grow someone else’s wealth.

If I were to do it again (for the first time) I would:

- go out to dinner less and save more of that money (nothing to do with home ownership, but I could have hosted more at my HOUSE)

- perhaps bought a little less of a house or bought a 2 family and rented the other unit.

Solve problems for yourself. Then see if it’s valuable for others.

Great question! I’ve sold 5 clocks so far with essentially no marketing effort other than very limited social media posts. The plan was for my spouse to spend about 1 day a week marketing them but for various reasons, we haven’t had the chance to do that. We promote the website, but all of our sales have been through Etsy (which was a surprise for me). 2 sales were people we knew. Hopefully, by years end we’ll be able to spend more time marketing. It would be great to get to 1-2 units a month.

I’ve paid for the cnc I bought and all the other miscellaneous tools so far. I’m not yet accounting for My time spent. But currently that’s still intellectually interesting since I’m learning how to fabricate things better and still experimenting. I’d say that if I sell 2 more I’d be at break even even if including my time.

More importantly my kids 4 and 7 are really excited about making things and are constantly coming up with projects that use the cnc machine (I obviously design the thing and run the machine) but my oldest “helps” me set up and even made a video explaining to their kindergarten class how the machine works. I found that ad a big win.

I also REALY like making various presents for family and friends as I wrote in this blog post: https://www.finewordclocks.com/blog/2019/10/10/what-is-the-m.... To me that is worth a lot and nearly all kids birthday party presents for the last 2 years have been home made and VERY highly received.

I agree this is very different that what most side projects posted here are. Atm I’m not really focused on making money as I am doing something interesting. If I was optimizing on money, I’d have a different day job. Though I’d certainly love to have more money, I don’t need it and my quality of life would likely be much different (worse).

Pre COIVID I knew a lot of physicians who would have loved to provide telemedicine. The problem was insurance wouldn’t pay for it (in the US). Now I the state where I live is it temporarily mandated by the governor that insurance must pay for it. Hopefully this becomes permanent.

I concur. Maybe OP prices themselves at $50/hour. That means only 20 hours of work in a month is needed. Lots of people will pay $50/hour. Maybe op has trouble finding full time work at this level starting out. But sure they could find 1/2 weeks work over the course of the month.

My side projects are primarily for myself meaning:

- intellectually stimulating

- excuse to acquire toys (cnc, miter saw, linoblocks and inking supplies, etc)

- can be used a fun projects/learning experiences for my kids.

My project that has generated the most revenues has been selling (in very low quantities) a limited edition wordclock that I designed and build. Except for the Qlock2 all the wordclocks I’ve seen are diy or compete on cost. Mine is (imho) a high quality art piece. And I price it similarLy to Qlock2 but with a totally different aesthetic. My wordclock making started as presents for friends and family then evolved to a workshop I taught at a local maker space. Some discussion on my Show HN a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18950130

Website: finewordclocks.com

Etsy: finewordclocks.etsy.com

I bought a cnc machine for the clocks but most of my cnc work currently is making projects with the kids. Some of them have been refined into other products (Like custom engraved magic marker holders) on my Etsy site.

Lately As a side project to my side project I’ve been making wooden sneeze guard stands. These started by my neighbor who’s a dentist asking me to help him make some. Then I made a few for friends that own a local bakery. Last week I received an order for $1000 worth from an urgent care provider. Feels good to help small businesses reopen post lockdown. Even cooler if they are willing to pay me to help. It also serves as a teaching moment with my kids.

Next is to figure out how to use my maker skills to help BLM movement. I’m still trying to figure that out. Ideas welcome!

I switch mouse hands throughout the day to reduce arm stress. A little practice goes a long way, quickly.

Looks great! I’ve checked it out before. The primary limitation for me vs YNAB is iphone support.

I’m currently a YNAB user and I love it. There are a lot of YNAB users. They already understand the value of this type of tool. If you want to try and convert YNAB users you might want to consider a way for YNAB users to migrate to your tool.

I’ve been very satisfied with YNAB too. It’s easy enough that even my spouse uses it. I really like having a clear picture of the budget.

I frequently have phone calls with customers via sat phones. The latency is pretty tough. With experience one learns to leave lots of pauses to allow for the other person to interject if needed. But it’s still frustrating.

Then I think about the latency that would be there with ANY communications 30 years ago and think “wow! This is amazing!”

This is sinister genius. Do you have a citation link? I’d love to read more.

FYI, I appreciate your use of “acerbic”. Thank you for making the Effort to use a “fancy” word.

That’s a good point. But maybe they don’t have 100% confidence so they want to share the risk. Or maybe alphabet doesn’t see the self driving VEHICLE as their product. Maybe they see the consumer data as the product and want someone else to pay for the effort to collect it.

Great points. I’d love to hear counterpoints from those who downvoted.

It seems like this level of organization would be beneficial to the sighted community as well. Is this a value that you use to market to customers?

I’m working on another fancy wordclock: http://www.finewordclocks.com

I make them from a single block of sapele. They give the exact time every 5 minutes with “ish” appended for the 2 minutes before and after the exact time. Time is set via wifi.

I’ve been making various wordclocks as gifts for a few years. I also made a simplified design that I donated to my local makerspace for a workshop I used to teach there (we used all their cool tools to make the parts then students soldered and assembled their own unit. I provided the design and it’s program).

This sapele version is (imho) a pretty refined design and the first one for sale. So far I’ve sold 4.

I also cut 3 magic marker holders for an order I got on my Etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/finewordclocks). That’s my side project to my side project.

I’m Fortunately in this position. My spouse is on full time should care. We’re not wealthy but I make enough that we can live happily this way and our choice is that this is worth the reduction in income from my spouse working outside the house.

Even so, this is REALLY hard. I can’t even comprehend the feelings of those less fortunate.

Thank you.

How do you perform in your day job? Do you have the same indecision or are you productive? If your productive at work, then perhaps consider what you are looking to achieve in a side project.

For me, my side projects are for fun and intellectual exploration. I’ve been making art-piece wordclocks as gifts and sell a few occasionally. This is totally orthogonal to my day job. The orthogonally is what I really crave. It gives my mind a nice refresh.

I’m curious why the parent received down votes. I’d be quite interested in hearing Why from those who downvoted.

FYI your local library may offer free streaming services. Mine does with Kanopy. It’s actually pretty good.

Where I live (in RI) the lock down is to flatten the curve. Not simply to allow time to make ventilators. We are lacking ALL PPE. We’re also in the process of constructing field hospitals since We lack the hospital beds. Without PPE it will spread through our healthcare providers quicker and without hospital beds more people will die. Yeah ventilators would be nice too. But they’re not the main bottleneck.

Pushups help me a lot. Even only 25 one-three times a day make a difference!

Good question. I’d like to hear people’s thoughts too.

If the issue was that simple ans black&white then bezos would not have his fortune. Amazon has gamed the system.

Yeah, I get that “casual” face mask wearing won’t do a lot to protect the wearer from contracting the virus, but if everyone was wearing a masks, that would reduce transmission by know AND unknown carriers. I’m somewhat frustrated wearing masks for this reason is not mandated.

One thing the I don’t see discussed is imho analysis should not rely on a single plot. Multiple different plots describe different thing.

Let’s use “all the plots”

I’m curious how many vets in AK wear an Apple Watch.

Though I get it that your brother wants to do something.

Came here to say this.

Talk to your landlord.

One fear I have is that the current US administration will bring one (a war) to us sooner rather than later.